Merge pull request rails#47714 from nirebu/nirebu/stop-root-string-allocation-in-helper

Do not allocate the first path character in asset helper

Author: jonathanhefner

actionview/lib/action_view/helpers/asset_url_helper.rb

@@ -196,7 +196,7 @@ def asset_path(source, options = {})
           source = "#{source}#{extname}"
         end
 
-        if source[0] != ?/
+        unless source.start_with?(?/)
           if options[:skip_pipeline]
             source = public_compute_asset_path(source, options)
           else